speakmymind: July 2016

After seeing all the news coverage and videos in TV and internet about the coup attempt, I had to put out my points and facts related to failed coup attempt in Turkey (which is my homeland) on July 15th, 2016, Friday night.

What happened? A group of people from army, mostly gendarme forces, occupied bridges over the Bosphorus, Istanbul Ataturk Airport, TRT (turkish national state TV station) and CNN Turk, a sister TV station to CNN. The president of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan was in a vacation in the southwest of the country. He managed to leave the hotel just before it was raided by soldiers. Lets hear the rest from a video below and I believe it would make a great sense to Americans.

How the coup is stopped? It is very important to note that the coup stopped by the people of Turkey. People took the streets before and after Erdogan's encouragement via facetime connection on the TV. Ordinary people, not only Erdogan supporters, took the streets and run up to the soldiers by telling them what they are doing is wrong. It was a whole night awake time for people in Turkey. The call to prayer (Adhan) was called very often the entire night from the mosques. The incidents could escalate and take long turn but fellow soldiers who resisted to coup soldiers did a great job even for the cost of their own life.

An important point here is many people are shot by the soldiers, and shot from tanks and helicopters. Here, I may share some footage at the bottom of the page, which I believe that they were not shown on TV. This is a point that prevents foreigners to comprehend fully the heaviness of the incidents. Please have a look on these but I warn you that it is graphic.

This phrase is the most searched on Google that night: "How to stop a tank"

If you watched CNN, BBC and some other TV stations, they all said that President Erdogan called his supporters to the streets, even though he clearly called everybody to take the streets, not his fans or followers. Do you think it was a simple mistake or deliberate blunder?

Who did that? People who are followers of Fethullah Gulen.

Gulen is a religious figure in Turkey. He preached in many mosques in Turkey and has been living in the US since 1999. It was one of his long term project to place his followers in critical and high level positions in Turkey in order to reach his innocent and religious goals such as steering the country to a better direction. But nope, it was how it is marketed.

His followers opened over a thousand of secular schools around the globe including the US. They have more than 130 schools in 26 states of the US. He always promoted human rights. rule of law, democracy, secularism, love and so on. Also, his followers taught Turkish language, which they called "language of love". Of course teaching Turkish language has nothing to do with Islam, but they used it as a way to trick nationalist and patriotic people of Turkey on their side. When colonialists pushed their culture and language on colonized land it was immoral but when his followers did the same it was fine. Again, his followers run many secular schools, that are not Islamic or Muslim schools. And, this movement, as they called Hizmet (means Service), don't open mosques or masjeeds in the US like other muslim nationals or communities. Instead, they deliberately prefer to open Turkish American cultural centers. This is for sure because of the reason that they don't want to be associated with other muslims which they may not like due to their inclination in Islam, At the end of the day, it is not cool to be associated with Salafi, Wahhabi or long bearded or hijabi Muslims.

Long story short, during the years Gulen gained so much power due to number of people and money that they manage. Many people in government and high level positions in Turkey. President Erdogan, recently noticed this and wanted to stop him due to huge power and influence that he has over the state. Until then, Erdogan and Gulen movement was fine. His followers gained more power in Erdogan's term of presidency. Erdogan said, "we were deceived by this group".

Gulen's movement was accepted as an illegal terrorist organization recently. In reality, nobody expected and believed that those people would be a terrorist. But, July 15th coup attempt was an eye opener to everybody. Gulen followers from military and police has killed police, soldiers and mostly civilians.

240 people killed and over 2200 wounded. One of Erdogan's friend was killed with his teenager son. Please, keep this in mind if you hear anybody saying ignorantly that it was staged. Also, that night a suspended Gulen movement police chief was found in an army tank, as police are not supposed to be in an army vehicle. This shows that they were connected.

Now, the question you may have is though some soldiers did the coup why many people are being fired in Turkey nowadays ? It is about 70 thousand people fired from army, police, universities, judiciary, state departments. national institutes and so on. The number keeps rising too.

To understand this, you should know about how Gulen movement people acted over the years. If a Gulen follower held a high position, when a new hire was necessary he or she gets another Gulen follower hired as they already had connection. Therefore, Gulen followers in those positions, do not necessarily there as deserving. They hold those positions because they are just members of this group. Lets say, to work at Turkish Airlines, you don't have to have such and such qualities. Nope. It is just enough to have any degree and be a member of Gulen movement. Thus, I am not sorry for those who didn't deserve. Of course, this phenomenon is not valid for each one of them as there are highly qualified ones among them. Moreover, there are ongoing investigations and arrests regarding Gulen guys cheating on national exams to get positions as officers. For example, at a national state exam more than a hundred people got full points (by answering correctly to all the questions) and many are husband and wives or close relatives. Also, they all are from Gulen movement. It is obvious that they have been given the answers before the exam by a high level officer. So, justice must prevail. No sorry for that.

Also, if you look at decisions by the judges on certain cases. It gives you the clue that his guys in the system don't follow the proper procedure but their own secret agenda. For example, there was a big case that caused many to be jailed as a member of a terrorist organisation after those guys talked negatively about Fethullah Gulen but had no guilt. Also, Gulen's guys in police and intelligence agency wire-taped many innocent people for investigation of a fabricated illegal organization. Again, this seems to be for their own agenda, maybe eliminating their rivals?

Also, Turkish government stated Gulen movement as an illegal organization since 2015, So far, it must have given people enough time to break apart from it. On the other hand, Gulen already told his followers to deny their love for him and even insult him publicly to cover themselves up. He denied that he is behind the coup, and yes, that is no surprise for a taqiyya (liar) guy.

Let's come to Erdogan's dictatorship :) This is a funny headline that you hear in western media. Since, they cant obviously say how much they are sorry for not getting rid of Erdogan, they innocently fuss about his increasing authority. Another deliberate translation mistake by western media was, Erdogan's statement on being harsh on coup actors. He said "this criminals (coup soldiers and so on) will be punished harshly" on the night of the events. How it is translated by western media is "Erdogan said he will be harsh on his opponents". It was pathetic. They are not opponents, they are soldiers and police with the guns, tanks and plane killed their own people. They are criminals and terrorist. Of course, they will be caught and prosecuted for their crimes and traitor acting.

Turkey officially ask the US to extradite Fethullah Gulen but he still resides in Pennsylvania comfortably.